


Second Family

by The_Pasta_Reaper (Hey_Buddy)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Bill is the Drum Major, F/M, I live for marching band AUs, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hey_Buddy/pseuds/The_Pasta_Reaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best decision Dipper made was joining Band. It's practically been his life since he started marching his 3rd year, and the rest of his small band is his second family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So...I really suck at titles, but as I mentioned in the tags, I live for marching band AUs so I had to do this

There’s nothing like marching around a field for 8 hours a day in what feels like 100 degrees with a 30 pound metal beast wrapped around your torso, hoping you remember where to march to next while you play your music that you spent all previous day and night memorizing. Watching your Drum Major and listening to them yelling when to move and hold as you do a run through of your show you’ve been learning for the past week. Praying that the Color Guard member 3 steps away from you doesn’t hit you with their flag and that the drumline doesn’t deafen you. When the day’s over, you hear the same words over and over again in your head.

“-DETAIL, TEN HUTT!”

“-WITH PRIDE!!!”

“Nine, ten, eleven, twelve-and-move! Two, three, four-and-hold!”

“Can we take a water break?”

“Run it back to set 6! Hustle back!”

And the award-winning “One more time!”

It’s been Dipper Pines’s summer for the past three years, except this is his first year with the metal beast.

But he loves it. He doesn’t know where he’d be without marching band. Stuck to the couch playing video games all day every day for three months, most likely.

He knows all of that hard work pays off when they finish that first halftime show of the season. When that final note ends and the whole band’s eyes are switching between their Drum Major and Director’s faces, tired and proud smiles hurting their chapped cheeks as they catch their breath. Even though they weren’t perfect, they did their best and they all know that.

Dipper lives for that feeling.


	2. Last Day of Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you’re in band, it consumes your life in the best way.

Every year, during band camp, Dipper and Mabel only get about 4 hours of sleep each night. Mabel brings up how well a certain drumline kid did, or asks how sectionals were, and they don’t stop talking about everything Band until they’re told it’s 2:00 in the morning and they need to get off the couch and in their rooms.

Like every day for the past week, Dipper immediately got out of bed when his phone’s alarm went off at 6:30, when Mabel should already be out of the shower. He showered and both finish getting ready by 7:15. They eat a light breakfast in under ten minutes and remind their uncle that “Early is on time, on time is late, and late sucks butt.”

They got there at 7:43 to set up the tents with the Guard Captain, Lindsey. The Woodwind and Equipment Captains, Summer and Autumn respectively, repainted the yard lines, and the Marching Captain/Drum Major brought the podium to the 50.

Mabel urged her brother to help Bill, pushing him away from the tent. Dipper tried to convince Mabel he wasn’t blushing and finally marched to his crush, actually rolling his feet in perfect eight-to-five steps by instinct.

Bill spotted it and tried not to laugh. “Yo, dawg,” he intentionally said in a dumb, dragged out manner. Dipper momentarily forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

“You’re stuck in the 90s.”

Bill tried to pull off a Batusi while high-step marking time to nothing. “You sure about that?” Dipper couldn’t help but throw his head back and snort at how dumb his Drum Major looked.

“That’s 60s, Bill!”

“Not only 60s! John Travolta brought it back in ’94!”

“Don’t you need to set this up?”  
\------------------------------  
“Last day of camp! Let’s get this done! Get your instruments and leave your binder just like yesterday, and mark your water bottle! Go to your captain-“

“-COME ON! We’re wearing Sharpies on our clothes! It’s not hard to come to us and ask to use it!” Summer cut in.

“We don’t care!” a drumline kid shouted from the back of the room.

Summer could only look disgusted for a moment. “Well you should! I shouldn’t be pouring out so many water bottles that you don’t finish because you don’t know which one is yours, that I feel the need to ask for Mother Nature’s forgiveness!” She had to catch her breath halfway through.

After a silence, the director sighed. “Everyone get two water bottles and MARK YOUR NAME, NOT just an ‘M’, because we don’t know if its Mabel’s, Maddy’s, Madison’s, Mina’s, Molly’s, whatever. It’s not hard to get a Sharpie from a Captain or the bulletin board RIGHT outside and write a word down. They shouldn’t have to chase you down to get you to do it. And if you waste all your water pouring it down each other’s backs, or chugging it just to see if you can, you’re not getting another until lunch in…3 and a half hours.”

The younger kids that normally didn’t listen finally did after remembering Summer’s mini-speech.

“Thank you!”

“Okay…Now that that’s hopefully over, I didn’t even say how far we should get today. On Thursday, we already put together most of the first song with music. We’ll finish that today, and hopefully finish the second, if we hustle. Now get to the field for basics, same way as yesterday. Drumline-go to the Warm-up Tree and…yeah you know the drill. I’ll be out there in 15. Now get outta here.”  
\------------------------------  
30% of the band is going into the 8th grade, their first year in real band and first year marching. Most can already play their faces off, but some naturally still kind of suck at marching.

“Mark time, march! And left, left, left, left, FRANKLIN, LEFT!! Thank you…Forwards, march!”  


Franklin. Also known as Frankle, Frackle, Frack, The Literal Worst. The kid even the band director has given up on. A trombone going into 11th grade, he joined in the middle of marching season the previous year and still barely knows how to hold his horn. The other trombone going into 8th grade is ten times better than him at playing and marching, and actually steps off on her left foot.

Bill tries to forget Franklin is “in band.” He doesn’t listen to anyone, he can’t play, he can’t even mark time, therefore can’t march, he just doesn’t try. The thing that pisses Bill off the most though is that he flips off Dipper, his Captain, when he’s told to do anything. Franklin thinks that because Dipper is a year below him he doesn’t have to listen to him, even though he has the mind of a seven-year-old. When you tell him he needs to respect his leaders, he just calls you a jerk and bumbles away.

Fortunately, there are a few newcomers catching on quickly. Even a guard girl who’s completely new to band, 10th grader Maddy. She’s taking the percussion class this year after the persuasion of her boyfriend, Tanner, a 9th grade snare. She constantly reminds people that Tanner’s supposed to be in her grade, his parents just entered him into school later than they should have.  
\------------------------------  
Water breaks are Heaven. Unless you’re a leader, who has to constantly keep the rookies from wandering off the sideline, especially those rookies in relationships that try to sneak off to canoodle. There are two terrible, terrible, terrible couples in the band that do this.

Brianna and Zander, an 8th grade rookie flute and 9th grade bass drum. Zander can’t even stand Brianna, as he’s just dating her to try to make the girl he likes jealous, Summer, bass clarinet and aforementioned Woodwind Captain. Brianna is the type to actually wear dresses and flip flops to band practice, and Zander is the type to wear jeans and a hoodie to practice so he can complain about the heat.

Then, there’s Lori and Will, both 8th grade rookies put on bass. Lori used to be a good child and listen, but Will has pulled her into his habits. Playing while the director is talking, not taking her music home, not practicing, not putting her drum back in its case, etc. Will is only in band because Lori is, so he doesn’t ever pay attention and still barely knows his warm-ups.

Once again, Bill has to ask Franklin to pretty please stop yelling at the cars on the road next to the practice field. This has happened all 5 days of band camp about once every 20 minutes. All of leadership just look at each other, take a long, deep breath together while clenching a fist and punching the air, pretending to be doing long-distance fist bumps.

The rest of the band(not including Franklin, Zander, and Will) does beautifully with basics, barking out the counts perfectly on beat and most staying on the correct foot, not even blinking until Bill proudly calls out “At ease!”

Bill laughs and runs a hand through his hair. Dipper grins and blushes. “See, this is what happens when you just simmer down and pay attention!”  


Tanner leans over to Summer and mumbles something in her ear. She gasps and they both start a chant. It starts out quietly. “Box drill, box drill, box drill,” 3 more older kids join in and it gets louder as they start clapping with it. “Box drill, box drill, box drill…”

Dipper sees Bill roll his eyes and smile from the podium and joins in as it eventually becomes an uproar. “BOX DRILL! BOX DRILL! BOX DRI-!“

“HEY!!” They all stop and the rookies were clearly afraid of how loud he was. “Let’s do a box drill!”

A couple terrified rookies look around the field as if the answer to “What’s a box drill?” is written on everyone’s faces. Bill saw it and laughed again. “We’re gonna do the same thing as this, just not like ‘March 8 steps to the right and take one step left.’ It can be forwards, backwards, left, right, I could make you march this whole field if I want, you have to listen. If you go the wrong direction, miss the line, march wrong tempo, wrong foot, don’t roll your feet, I’ll call you out and you go to the sideline, and you can take a water break. I appreciate you counting that loud, but this time you’ve gotta be quieter. You need to be able to hear me and I’m not going full out drum major voice yet.” He saw a couple terrified faces and laughed. “No, that is not the loudest I can be.”

The first one out is, not shockingly, Will. Within the first 5 seconds he was off tempo and was called out by an annoyed Bill. Then, Franklin was called out for walking instead of marching, wrong foot and tempo. Bill sighed as Zander did the opposite of staying on his toes, almost high-step stomping. He glared as Brianna purposely missed the line by a long shot to go sit with him.

Bill was very impressed as the rookies that were left kept up with the older kids. The first one out was Tori, a rookie flute who missed New Marchers’ Camp but caught up wonderfully while learning her show. Poor Lori thought Bill called her out instead of Tori, leaving everyone wondering why she just left the field when Bill hadn’t called her out.

As the director came to the field, half of the rookies became nervous and started dropping out, the other half becoming more confident, their faces sterner, posture straighter, and higher on their toes.

Dipper and Tanner were eventually the last two left. Even the 5th year tenor saxophone marcher, Kyle, messed up before they did. Dipper almost grinned for half a second before fixing it, overpowering Tanner’s counting.

Almost two more minutes had passed before Bill smirked and raised the tempo, letting them cross three yard lines, then calling out the direction they were already going in. Confusion flashed on Tanner’s face and he hesitated to keep marching, lowering his arms and groaning out of realization. Bill proudly smiled at Dipper and he smiled back, then laughed in victory after Bill halted him.

“Good job, kid! Go get some water!” Bill clapped him on the back.

“I’m not a kid, I’m 15.” He punched his arm lightly and jogged to the sideline, where Mabel was waiting with a hand up for a high-five.  
\------------------------------  
By lunch, the first song was completely put together with music and they were let go early. Pacifica’s mom had brought lunch every day, rotating between hot dogs, sandwiches, and tacos. That day is Friday, and because of that being the last day of camp, she also brought enough tubs of ice cream for 40 people to have a bowl.

“Here’s the drill! Drum Major goes first, then Captains, Librarian, then down the grades. Mrs. Northwest and Mrs. Mars will control how much you get; we don’t need 25 kids bouncing off the walls.”

Dipper grinned as he accusationally added, “Mabel.” She laughed nervously and looked away, then did the same thing but said, “Lori.” She blushed and slapped her laughing boyfriend, as Mabel was referencing when she ran at full speed out of the band room with 2 stolen boxes of cupcakes.

After everyone got a serving(with leadership amazed that little kids didn’t try to skip in line), Dipper didn’t know who to sit with. Of course, Mabel sat down next to Bill and waved him over with a wink. Dipper rolled his eyes.

The band room has pretty limited space, making a third of them find a place in the floor. Another third was lucky enough to get actual seats because they went first. The last third had to go outside and sit in the breezeway ramp connected the room, angrily attempting to keep gnats away from their food.

Mabel, Bill, and Dipper were lucky enough to get seats. Bill had chosen the area closest to the director’s desk to be away from the annoying almost-8th graders. Even though they started listening, they still thought it was funny to randomly scream “Chicken!” at the top of their lungs, thinking it was okay because they were outside.  


Since they were audible from inside the room, Bill got up and hit the window closest to the breezeway to let them know they were being too loud.

“I haaaaate some of these little kids!~” Bill hiss-sang.

“Brianna specifically?” One of Mabel’s eyebrows raised.

“Yes! Every time she talks, I’m just like,” he made an extremely pained face, “Cringes out of this dimension!”

“She’s the only new flute that didn’t listen to Addie before today,” Dipper mumbled angrily.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?”

“Yeah. She was bad as Will was,” Mabel sighed. “And Will used to flip me off and refuse to get his drum himself. Last water break, he actually asked me if he was left and right face marching correctly. I’m so proud.” She pretended to wipe a tear. “Oh, look, it’s David! David, come over here!”

David was a trumpet going into 9th grade. He was a great kid—listens very well, tries his hardest every day, really respects Dipper, practices as much as he can, and really understands what it means to be in band. He was one of the only trumpets Dipper ever knew that wasn’t a total asshole.

The total asshole trumpet, Ryan, pushed the propped door open with his elbow and stomped outside with Kyle.

“What’s wrong with them?” Mabel cringed when the door slammed closed.

“I think they’re still mad that they lost to this guy.” Bill punched Dipper, and Dipper was going to punch him back until he saw Bill’s tiny smile and the pride in his eyes.

And he only smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone that might have thought the Will in this was supposed to be Will Cipher-he isn't.


End file.
